"Holly Lisle - Fire In The Mist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lisle Holly)

staff around the wolf, blazing green fire. The wolf screamed, its voice for a moment disconcertingly
human. Then he crumpled to the ground and was still—unmarked, stone dead.

At the scream, the other wolves vanished into the forest, disappearing like the memories of shadows.



Chapter 1: A POX ON
BRIGHT
IN front of a fieldstone cottage, on a crisp spring morning, Risse Leyeadote and her leggy, dark-eyed
daughter, Faia, hugged each other goodbye.

Faia pulled away first and grinned. "I love you, Mama. I will see you soon."

"Such a hurry. My youngest daughter cannot wait to abandon me for the flocks and the fields."

"Oh, Mama—!"

Risse laughed, then held out a wrapped packet and a necklace. "Take these, Faiachin. I have more than
enough jerky here to get you to the first of the stay-stations, and I have finished the work on a special
amulet—added protection against wolves. And I am sending my love. You have yourerda ?"

Faia nodded.

"Wolfwards?"

Another nod.

"Knife? Herb bag? Matches? Needles?..."

Faia nodded at each item on her mother's list until finally she burst out laughing. "Mama!How many
years have I been taking the flock upland? I have everything I need. I will be fine, the sheep will be fine,
the dogs will be fine, and I will see you in late summer with a nice bunch of healthy lambs and fat ewes."

Her mother smiled wistfully. "I know, love. But it is a mother's job to worry. If I did not, who would?
Besides, I miss you when you are not here."

Faia's face grew serious for a minute. "I always miss you, too, Mama—but it will not be forever."

Her mother nodded. "Have you said your goodbyes to Rorin or Baward yet?"

Faia caught the conspiratorial inflection and winked. "To Rorin, yes. Last night. Baward is going to meet
me at the Haddar Pass pasture in about a month, and we are going to—ah, graze the flocks together for
a few days."

"Are you, now?" Her mother smiled a bit wistfully, remembering long summers in her own youth spent
"grazing the flocks" with one young shepherd or another. "Remember to use the alsinthe, then. Well, I'm